Father's Day
by WishingDreamer5
Summary: Ellone has a gift for Father's Day. Too bad that Laguna has never been the artistic type. Yes, leave it to him to subconsciously make people feel downright horrible about themselves in less than 20 seconds. And why is Raine glaring at him all the time like she wishes him an utterly slow and painful death?


**A/N: Happy Father's Day! It seems that I'm in an unexpected "Write-FFVIII-Related-Stuff!" mood. Enjoy, because in real life we're all artists, and artists are always appreciated, never understood. ;)**

**Thanks: M. L. Ayala, for betaing this.**

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><p><em>~ Yes, leave it to Laguna to subconsciously make people feel downright horrible about themselves in less than 20 seconds. ~<em>

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><p>Today was an extremely slow and quiet day. Not that Laguna minded. At least he would have a day off on Father's Day. The man could still remember how he always tried to make his father happy with a gift. He had never been the artistic type, which was why he had never bothered to draw or create something on paper. Laguna was sure that that would have made his father laugh, too, but more at the expense of him. It was a good thing that he was an only child. Oh, how he would have hated it if his brother or sister would have been so much better at drawing than him...<p>

Turning around slightly, he found Ellone staring at him quietly from the corner of the room. A quiet Ellone, that was a first.

"Ellone, what are you doing there? And what are you hiding behind your back?"

If she really thought that she could hide it from him by holding it - whatever this "it" was - behind her back, then she was terribly wrong.

The little girl didn't look at him. It seemed that she thought that her feet were a lot more interesting. She walked slowly forward, almost as if she was scared or maybe nervous about approaching him. Laguna wondered why. He wasn't that scary, was he? Or was it because she had broken one of his few belongings?

Still not looking at him, Ellone muttered, "Happy Father's Day, uncle Laguna!"

She promptly removed her tiny hands from behind her back. Laguna could see now that she was holding a rolled up piece of paper. Some colors were imprinted on the blank side of it, mainly brown, blue and orange. The brunette toddler gave it to him, before getting a much unexpected bear hug from the surprised man.

"Thank you so much, Ellone! This really means a lot to me. You have no idea how happy this makes me," Laguna cried, deliriously happy.

He was truly touched that this little angel of a girl regarded him her father. _Him_ of all people! (Despite the fact that she kept calling him "uncle.") Nobody had ever given him a gift for Father's Day before.

From the corner of his eyes, he could see that Raine had entered the living room, too. She was smiling, even though she was trying to hide it by pretending to be dusting.

"But you haven't even seen the drawing, uncle Laguna," Ellone noted, slightly bewildered.

He actually didn't have to; it was the gesture that counted. However, since he wanted to humor her, Laguna smoothened the paper and took a look at Ellone's masterpiece. Four creatures were drawn, with "_Haqpy Father's bay_!" on top of the drawing. He smirked, remembering how he used to confuse the 'b' with the 'd' and the 'p' with the 'q.' It seemed that Ellone had pretty much the same problem. Still, for someone this young it was quite impressive, because she was close enough. At least she didn't write "_Habdy Fahter's pay_!" or something.

"Wow, this is really great! Well done! And that's me, right?" Laguna asked, looking at the smiling girl for confirmation.

Ellone nodded, enthusiastically, glad that the man liked her portrait. "Yeah. And that's Raine, and that's me," she explained, pointing at the other people on her drawing.

Laguna nodded. It actually made sense, despite the fact that Ellone was taller than both him and Raine in this drawing.

"I see. And that should be our pet Moomba, right?" Laguna continued with a grin on his face.

At that, Ellone's face fell and her brows knitted together in an uncharacteristic frown. At once, Laguna started to wonder what he had done wrong. Yes, leave it to him to subconsciously make people feel downright horrible about themselves in less than 20 seconds.

"Actually, that's a _moogle_," she said, a quaver evident in her voice.

A moogle... Right. How could he _not_ have seen that? Curse him and his inability to see the difference between a moomba and an orange moogle. Laguna fervently hoped that he hadn't said something wrong to hurt her feelings.

"...Oh, right! Of course. I'm sorry."

"I think that your uncle Laguna needs glasses, Elle," Raine spoke cheerfully, not looking at any of them as she did so.

The somewhat sharp edge in her voice didn't go unnoticed by Laguna, though. How great was that, so now she was mad at him, too? Come on, he was human! Human made mistakes, it was a part of life! Didn't they know?

"So why is the moogle wearing slippers?" Laguna wondered, not realizing that this was the second mistake he made.

"He isn't. Those are his feet!" Ellone explained, albeit slightly annoyed and hurt.

"Obviously..." he stopped here to sneak a glance at Raine. The woman was giving him a look dangerous enough to make him feel uncomfortable. "Then why does he have two bullet holes in his face?"

"Th-those are his eyes!"

_Eyes, huh? How in the world...?_

Laguna turned his head in a strange angle, squinting his eyes almost shut.

"Oh, I see now," Laguna started, but it was far too late by now. "W-wait, Ellone!"

Ellone had already run out of the room with tears threatening to spill out her big brown eyes. Laguna felt a pang of guilt inside him for being the reason that the girl was so upset.

This time, he didn't have to stand still by that too long, because Raine decided to hit his head with the now dirty duster she was holding in her hand. Laguna didn't know how she did it, but it actually hurt.

"Ow! What was _that_ for?" he cried, rubbing the side of his head, near his ear, where she had hit him.

"For being such an emotionless, inconsiderate _jerk_! That's why!" she replied hotly. "Do you have any idea how hard she's worked for that? And you just ruined her dreams with your idiotic remarks."

_...Ruined her dreams?_

"Wait a minute, aren't you _overreacting_ a little?" Laguna noted, only causing Raine to narrow her eyes into thin slits.

She looked like she was_ this_ close to kill him with her bare hands. She probably would have done it, too, if there hadn't been a chair and a table in between them. The person who had invented those two was a hero. Honestly, how such a beautiful woman could look this frightening at the same time was beyond his knowledge.

After giving him a dark and rather frightening _"You'll-Pay-For-This!"_ look of pure doom, she marched out of the room as well, probably to comfort her adoptive daughter.

Laguna merely sighed. She couldn't be serious about that... or could she? Would she poison his food, or kill him in his sleep? Maybe both?

Women. He would never understand them...

A Happy Father's Day, indeed.

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><p><strong>AN: So far it's been my first one-shot starring Laguna, Raine and Ellone. Drawing is so much harder than it looks like. I wonder what Squall would've given Laguna on Father's Day... :)**


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